Dear God,

Was the Stone Age before Adam or between Adam and Noah?

- The Atheist Jew

Atheist Jew,

The answer is clear: The Stone Age was before Adam.

I can only presume that you’re talking about Adam Sandler, given that he’s the most famous Adam currently on the scene. Just think about it, will you? How could all of Adam Sandler’s films and Saturday Night Live skits have been created with Stone Age technology? If you know how to create a photographic print and broadcast it electronically to millions of homes using flints, wooden shafts, and basket woven with reeds, please tell me.

The Stone Age was also before NOAH, the National Organization for Albinism and Hypopigmentation. They didn’t have nations back in the Stone Age. They just wandered around through big pieces of territory, hunting, gathering and talking about stones a lot. So, back then, there was just OAH, the Organization for Albinism and Hypopigmentation. There weren’t many people around back then, though, so the membership at any one time never got above seven.

I really wish you’d think these things through. It doesn’t take a divine mind to answer this kind of question, if you just put your thinking cap on first. You do have a thinking cap, I hope. If not, pray for one. Just remember that sometimes, my answer to a prayer is “no.”

- God

Dear God,

After seeing the news about the capture of a giant squid by a research team led by scientist Tsunemi Kubodera, my family went out and caught our very own giant squid last weekend. We’ve put it in the freezer to keep it fresh, but the truth is that we don’t know what to do with it now that we’ve caught it.

I’m now left wondering what the point was in capturing the giant squid. Looking at it, it’s pretty much just like a normal squid, except that it’s really, really big. It fills up our entire basement freezer, as a matter of fact, and so we’ve had to eat all of our frozen pizzas in one day, really fast, and we’re feeling sick.

Help us out, God. What do we do now?

- Horatio

Horatio,

When I took Jesus out on our first giant squid fishing trip, I made sure to impart to him the ethics of catching giant squid. Most important of all, you should endeavor to use every part of the squid, as the people did back in the Stone Age, when the difference between survival and starvation could depend upon knowing the way to make squid eye stew.

There’s the obvious thing to do with the flesh - giant calimari. I suggest serving it with lime as well as a marina sauce that has extra cayenne pepper. The mantle, properly cut, can make a jaunty holiday centerpiece for your New Year’s Eve Party. The beaks make excellent ashtrays or garden hoes. The little teeth from the suction cups on the tentacles, when polished, can be used to make unique necklaces to give to a prospective mate, or to sell at the farmer’s market.

Don’t forget to use the siphon, which can be used to make very effective tennis wristbands, until they begin to smell.

- God

Dear God,

I’m confused. You’re supposed to be the omnipotent ruler of the entire universe. Yet, I see that you’ve signed up for a free blog over at Wordpress.com using the same title that you’ve used here: Advice From God.

Why do you need to go open up a free Wordpress account? Don’t you have enough money to just go buy another web site, God?

- Ned

Ned,

Well, Ned. Part of being all-powerful is having the power to not do something. As God, I have the power to spend as much money as I want, but I also have the power of not spending as much money as I want. If I didn’t have the power to get something for free, what kind of divinity would I be?

The essence of being God is that I don’t need to do anything. I just do whatever I want. I am the originator of the culture of it-it-feels-good-do-it. That includes setting up a free web site if I want to.

- God

Dear God,

I was just born again a few days ago, and so I’m a bit new to all this Christianity stuff. There’s a lot I don’t understand. For example, I was reading this piece over at a Christian web site called Overcomers Unlimited, and there’s this stuff about how Jesus is going to surround us with hedges.

The site says, “When we are born into the kingdom, God puts a hedge around us. After that Satan has no access to us except as God allows.”

I don’t get it. Help me out. What are these people talking about?

- Nicholas

Nicholas,

First of all, it’s me who plants the hedge. The Bible clearly states that. I can’t get my son Jesus to do any yardwork, no matter how much I nag him, the lazy boy.

Second, what the hedge thing is all about is global warming. First, the hedge creates a shadow. Second, it helps to absorb carbon dioxide.

You’ve just now been born again, but I’ll have that hedge up around you by springtime. I’d have it up sooner if my son wasn’t so busy playing around with his Xbox.

- God

Dear God,

Leviticus 5, verse 2 speaks to us, “If a soul touch any unclean thing, whether it be a carcass of an unclean beast, or a carcass of unclean cattle, or the carcass of unclean creeping things, and if it be hidden from him; he also shall be unclean, and guilty.”

What is the meaning of this Bible verse for modern life?

- Louis

Louis,

There are three very important things you need to remember about this teaching of mine. I’m very specific about what makes you unclean and guilty, so pay attention.

First, if you touch any of these unclean things, so long as it is not hidden from you that you’ve touched it, it’s totally fine. You’re still clean and innocent. Go ahead and touch the rotting carcasses of unclean animals. Just look at the carcasses while you’re doing it.

Second, the only problem happens if your soul does the touching, if you know what I mean. No love affairs with rotting dead unclean animals, unless you look first.

Third, I encourage you to go out and get personal with creeping things. Just follow the rules above, and make sure the creeping things are clean first. Ask them to bathe before you roll around together. It’s a good way to get familiar before you get carnal. Cool? Oh, if these animals are already dead, then don’t bother asking them. Just hose them down.

A good modern technique for making sure your dead creeping animal love object won’t make you guilty in my eyes is to spray it with lysol. Otherwise, the standards of the ancient world related to this Bible verse were pretty much the same as for the modern world. Family values are family values, yesterday, today and tomorrow!

- God

Dear God,

I read recently in the Washington D.C. insider newsletter The Hill that Senator Hillary Clinton has hired Burns Strider to be a special liaison to religious power brokers to encourage priests and ministers to support her campaign for President. Here’s what The Hill had to say:

“Observers of Clinton’s expressions of faith say religion has always been important to her, that she attended prayer group meetings while first lady, and that she joined a Senate prayer group shortly after winning election in 2000. Reporters anticipating Clinton’s ’08 presidential run wrongly discount her expressions of faith as cynical political maneuverings, the observers add.”

Well, Hlllary Clinton seems like she’s willing to suck up to you to get your support. So, God, are you ready to give your official endorsement to Hillary Clinton for President?

- Maude

Maude,

I see all. I know all. The truth is that Hillary Clinton is, like Elizabeth Kucinich, a believer in New Age shamanistic pseudo Hinduism. This Christian prayer meeting stuff is just for show.

I haven’t endorsed anyone for President in 2008, Maude. When I do, I’ll let you know by sending a rainbow-colored polar bear running down Wall Street in July, okay? That’s my secret godly signal to you of when I’ve made an endorsement. Until then, I’m making a placeholder endorsement of Scooby-Doo for President in 2008, because he’s at least honest about being a cartoon dog, instead of all these presidential candidates going through this pathetic cartoon dog show of pretending that they’re all Jesus freaks and love to lick my divine boots the most.

Keep in mind that I’m not registered to vote.

- God

Dear God,

Why is there so much spam in my email inbox, and what can I do to rid myself of it?

- Inga

Inga,

Spam is the wages of sin, a fate similar to, but not quite worse than, death. With the onslaught of spam never ceasing, soon your email inbox will start to ache with heaviness, until your quota is filled and you sink to the bottom of the Internet.

Your spam comes from the sin of being overly friendly with the online world, laying your good name out there like a wanton hussy. For, how could the spam find you if you had not displayed your address out in public, as if in invitation for the devil himself. Who do you think could be the source of spam, if not Satan?

Of course, I created Satan myself, and being all-knowing, I knew that Satan would turn out the way that he did. So, Satan is really my servant.

The truth is that I am the source of spam, and I send it out to you because your email displeases me. For, I am under contract with the United States Postal Service, in order to increase its operations. Email is unacceptable competition.

So, in the name of the United States Postal Service, in the name of Satan, and in the name of God (which is, after all, my name), I tell you that you shall not be free of spam until you go to your nearest Post Office and purchase at least ten books of stamps!

- God

Dear God,

You are present in everything in the Universe, and that includes all people. So, you’re in Pope Benedict, but you’re also in Paris Hilton and in Madonna.

So, if God is in Madonna, what was the big deal about that show Madonna had in Europe during which she got up on a crucifix while singing? The Catholic priests were all up in arms about it, but if you are in Madonna, God, what’s the big deal?

God, you were crucified in Jesus, so why can’t you be crucified in Madonna? Where is the blasphemy?

- Lucianne

Lucianne,

Well, the implication was that I am my own mother. Madonna is supposed to be the Mother of God, not God himself, and if you start thinking about it that way, that God was the mother of God, then I would be giving birth to myself and then crucifying my own mother while committing suicide, which is absurd.

Above all else, God must not be absurd. It is to protect myself against the internal absurdity of myself that I declare the crucifixion of Madonna to be blasphemy.

- God

Dear God,

You are supposed to be all powerful and present throughout the entire universe. So, if you can do anything and go anywhere, you ought to be able to go on vacation.

On the other hand, if you are present everywhere at once, you would then be at work at the same time that you were on vacation, and therefore, would not really be on vacation from work at all.

How can you be omnipresent and all powerful and go on vacation? Is this another one of those mysterious ways things?

- Kenneth

Kenneth,

As a matter of fact, it is one of those mysterious ways things. I like to spend my vacations on the Mysterious Ways Cruise Lines.

This is one of those questions that you’re just not supposed to ask, Kenneth. It’s like the question, Who is God’s great grandfather?

What I’ve done, rather than resolve the conundrum, is to issue an edict that this question you’ve asked cannot be asked. Therefore, I never have to deal with it.

Oh, wait a minute. You’ve asked it anyway. Another conundrum! Aaaugh! Lemon juice on my cosmic paper cut! Ow! Ow! Ow!

- God

Dear God,

I recently found a profile of a 19 year-old young man living in the United Kingdom with a MySpace address of http://www.myspace.com/advicefromgod.

Is this you? Is God really a young Brit? Is this the new incarnation of the divine Lord of the Cosmos on Earth?

- Rory

Rory,

No, that young man is a blasphemer. He does not give advice from God. The only place to receive genuine, absolutely pure advice from God is at this web site. That young man is a false witness, a false prophet, and wears a funny hat!

You’ll notice that he hasn’t made any postings on his MySpace blog. That’s because I, the creator and master of the universe, have stymied his keyboard.

I am a jealous God, I will tolerate no web sites before mine, for mine is the kingdom of the Google Ranking, and those who do not believe will be cast into a lake of spam!

- God

Dear God,

Did the Grinch really steal Christmas?

- Penny

Penny,

No, the Grinch did not steal Christmas. He protested Christmas by refusing to participate in the mandatory Christmas rituals created and administered by the Whoville Council of Ayatollahs. The Whoville Times, which only publishes aritcles approved by the Whoville Ayatollahs, fabricated the story of the Grinch stealing all the presents and decorations and food from every house in the town of Whoville.

Think critically about it for a second: How would it be possible that one person sneak into all the houses in a town and steal all of their holiday paraphernalia, and do it in only one night? The truth is that it never happened. The Grinch didn’t do it. None of the Whos down in Whoville were missing any of their Christmas gear on Christmas morning, but each Who believed that the gigantic theft had taken place, and that their house was the only one that was spared.

All the Grinch did was sit up in his cave and refuse to come down into Whoville to participate in the Christmas ritual of singing Yahoo Doray Daboo Doray. No one understands the words to that song anyway.

For his refusal to participate, all the Whos down in Whovillegot up in arms and declared that the Grinch was clearly waging a war against Christmas. One person even declared that the Grinch had come down to one of the big stores down in Whoville, and, when greeted with a Merry Christmas, said Happy Holidays in response. That’s a serious crime in Whoville.

They put the Grinch in Who Prison for ten years, withChristmas carols broadcast into his cell 24 hours per day. The Grinch finally got out of prison five years ago and escaped to live in exile in Whatburg, across the mountains.

After this all went down, the Whos commissioned Dr. Seuss to write his anti-Grinch polemic. Don’t believe that book. The Grinch did not steal Christmas.

Apparently, the Grinch is presently working on his own version of events, which will soon be published in a book to be entitled, I, Grinch

- God

Dear God,

Today, I read a study by the World Institute for Development Economics Research that concludes that only one percent of the world’s people control 40 percent of the world’s wealth, and that 90 percent of the world’s people are forced to share just one percent of the world’s wealth.

This seems outrageously unjust to me. They say that you are omnibenevolent, purely good. If that’s true, how can you allow such injustice to continue in the world?

- Pierre

Pierre,

This system of distribution of wealth seems unjust to you only because you don’t know all the facts. What you didn’t know is that that big 90 percent chunk of economically poor people around the world in fact have much better representation in other areas of human life.

Did you know, for example, that the 90 percent of the world that is so much financially poorer than everybody else in fact has a much higher representation of their folk music on Putamayo albums of world music? It’s true.

Also, those poor people you seem so concerned about require much less medication for depression. Why, the percentage of people in that bottom 90 percent who take Prozac every day is much lower than the number of people in the most wealthy one percent who take Prozac every day.

Also, people in the 90 percent that is more poor are documented to have fewer instances of mechanical problems with their second cars.

See? If you take the time to look at the details, you’ll find that this supposed injustice all comes out in the wash. The world truly is just, as I have ordained it to be.

- God